[conspire] Thermal paste instructions

[Rick Moen]

I'm going to add this to the Linuxmafia.com Knowledgebase, it's so good.
Relevant to anyone assembling systems from parts and needing to put
thermal paste or film between a CPU/video chip and its heat sink / fan.

Doing this right is _very important_, because otherwise the heat sink or
fan may have little or no cooling effect.  (Unfortunately, buying
assemblies with this already done by the vendor is not a great
alternative, because _they_ often get it very wrong.)

----- Forwarded message from Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> -----

Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 10:39:44 -0500
From: Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>
To: tech at golug.org
Subject: [GoLugTech] Thermal paste instructions: Litt renamed from Fw: [ale]
	Ubuntu 15.10
Organization: Troubleshooters.Com
X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.12.0 (GTK+ 2.24.28; x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu)

Hi all,

Here are some very detailed instructions for applying thermal paste:

====================================================

Begin forwarded message:

Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 20:02:49 -0800
From: Alex Carver <agcarver+ale at acarver.net>
To: ale at ale.org
Subject: Re: [ale] Ubuntu 15.10


The secret methods to use thermal paste, as told from someone who has
used several pounds over the years in a laboratory setting on various
bits of equipment valued over $1 million:

0: Wear gloves for this process because skin oil is your enemy.

1: Get high-quality silver colloid paste[A].  It's not too expensive, but
it has high thermal conductivity.  For the lab, I used to get it from
Williams Advanced Materials, which is now owned by Materion.  The new
compound name is Thermotech TE Vacuum Paste.  It's meant to keep
sputtering targets cool that routinely see over 2kW of energy pumped
into them, resulting in several hundred watts of heat, all in a vacuum
chamber, which means no convection.  (It all goes through a water-cooled
heat sink.)

2: Get a new, stiff putty knife from the hardware store.  It needs to be
very stiff, not one that can flex easily.

3: Clean all surfaces very well, including the putty knife, with
lint-free cloth and a triad of acetone, isopropyl alcohol, and ethanol
-- or, in a pinch, just use high-purity isopropyl alcohol (93% or better).

4: Apply a small dab of the paste (about the size of an apple seed) to
either the chip or the heat sink with the corner of the putty knife.  You
don't need much, and you certainly don't want to "butter" the heat sink.

5: Scrape the putty knife flat across the surface that has the paste.
You will end up removing a fair amount of paste, in the process, and
what is left will be a very thin sheen.  This is all you need; resist
the urge to add more.

6:  Carefully align the two parts, and press them together lightly,
without twisting or rocking.  Then, clamp in place.

After that, you will have an air-free, ultra-flat surface between the two
parts, and maximum thermal conduction.  However, this only works with
really good paste.  The cheap stuff from a computer store doesn't work
as well, nor does it stay plastic.  The white paste is even worse.  It's
good for large power transistors, but not for this type of application.


A:  An alternative to silver colloid paste is indium foil.  You can buy
very thin sheets of foil (about the gauge of household aluminum foil)
from several vendors.  (ESPI Metals is one I usually use.)  Indium is a
very soft metal; it flows when compressed.  You would cut a square to
fit the chip package, clean everything very well with lint-free cloth
and isopropyl alcohol, and then tightly clamp the heat sink to the chip,
with the foil in-between.

On 2015-11-12 13:26, Wolf Halton wrote:
> Good point.
> It appears to be a common complaint that there is too much, or not
> enough, thermal paste.  That is cheaper than a fan, I reckon.  I may
> even have a bit of it about the lab.
> 
> Wolf Halton
> Mobile/Text 678-687-6104
> --
> Expand Your Vision = Enhance Your Impact
> Disaster Recovery in the Cloud
> <http://atlantacloudtech.com/painless-disaster-recovery/> -
> http://atlantacloudtech.com/painless-disaster-recovery/
> cloudtech.com/disaster-recovery
> 
> 
> On Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 6:58 PM, Boris Borisov <bugyatl at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Or thermal paste is not dried out ...
>> On Nov 10, 2015 10:12 PM, "Wolf Halton" <wolf.halton at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I just discovered that my video card is running at about 130 degrees
>>> Celsius, which is about 30% hotter than max. suggested by Nvidia. I
>>> got it used from a tech. recycler, so its history may include
>>> inadvertent rough handling that might be a contributing factor in
>>> this case.  Guess I ought to check if its cooling fan is running at
>>> all.

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